Strength
by flecksofpoppy
Summary: For 2011 Chocobo Races @ FF Exchange. Prompt from rozurashii: "Cloud/Rude. Cloud has always fallen for the strong silent types but until they started rebuilding Edge together, he never thought twice about the Turks. Now he can't get Rude out of his head."


Written for 2011 Chocobo Races, Team Tonberry on FF Exchange. Prompt from rozurashii: _Cloud/Rude. Cloud has always fallen for the strong silent types but until they started rebuilding Edge together, he never thought twice about the Turks. Now he can't get Rude out of his head._

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><p><strong>Strength<strong>

Piling broken bricks, fragments of roof singles, and broken glass is something to which Rude has become accustomed throughout his life. He's always known that his hands are most useful when they're lifting or hitting, that the force of his body is what defines him. People rarely ask him to think; for most of his life, he's been treated to freedom only when let off the leash, like a rabid animal waiting for blood.

In his lighter moments, when he feels like he needs a hobby, he builds bombs. The delicacy of parts is something that he understands, after watching cities crumble and the power of men fragment.

But Rude is a control freak, and it's only been the Turks, and Tseng, that has understood this about him. That when he's ordered to kill someone, to break things, to blow them up, he simply needs specific parameters; and when he does it, it will be precise, articulate, and exact down to the smallest detail.

And it's not that Rude is stupid, nor is he a restrained dog on a leash, growling for release. Rude is loyal, and if anyone in Shinra has ever thought of him as a dog, it might be by this association.

Reno thinks he's crazy, the way he goes to Edge on the days that they're not assigned somewhere to help clear the debris left by the remnants. Rude knows this because Reno has said so, a cigarette clasped between his fingers in the nights following all of the explosions and the repair of Rufus Shinra's skin, looking at him in the twilight nervously.

Reno thinks Rude's crazy because he doesn't understand bricks the way that his partner does. And he's afraid that he's being left somewhere far behind, fallen off the political machine to stare into a sky he'd only first seen when he became a Turk, and try to figure out why he's ended up alone.

But Rude's been alone for longer than Reno, and he doesn't fear loss quite as much. Rude doesn't work on desire; he works on likelihood and balance.

Cloud Strife's words to Rufus Shinra were one of the first things that ever embarrassed Rude. Loss, as defined by things that you actually had once, is crippling.

And ensconced within the walls of Healen - a small, final mainstay of a company that once allowed them prowl the streets of a sprawling urban kingdom unchecked - is shame, when breached by outsiders.

_I feel sorry for you._

Rude knows it shouldn't bother him, shouldn't make him pause. Although people have almost always treated him as a stupid thug, a block of lead that is only useful when being projected toward an object, Rude is perfectly capable of reflection. He just prefers not to waste his time, since so many things are inevitable, especially now.

So now he goes to Edge and lifts the remains of buildings and cradles bricks in his gloved hands, piles them into stacks to be cleared away. The practical process of cleansing is free of philosophy - simple, every day rebuilding with hard, sure parts and drying mortar. Nothing speculatory about it.

Cloud eyes him suspiciously when he walks past every day. It's often in the early morning, when the day's work site has first been announced.

The people love him here, because they don't know who he is. They don't even know his name. Like many people in the past, they simply say, _"Hey you, can you move this girder?"_But they're not unkind; they are all in the same position, with a simple goal that Rude shares, so he just nods and says yes.

Cloud never seems to be headed in any specific direction on these morning walks, but Rude never asks why he passes, casting long looks at the people as they work in piles of dirt.

Rude hates dirt. It was one thing he liked about Midgar - no dirt, no trees, no insects. _City living_, as his father once put it - such a far off, exotic concept where Rude is from.

Reno calls him sentimental, although it's usually a good-natured jab. _"Atonement? Well, good luck with that partner."_

Rude sometimes wonders where Chelsea is after the end of world, if she's still alive, and in the inner recesses of his mind, he wonders what she would say if she could see him now. Not because he thinks that she would love him, but because he realizes, one day, looking up at the sky in a moment of pause, sipping on a coffee that some volunteer has distributed to the workers, that he's changed. He doesn't know how, but he has.

And it's not because he won't kill people anymore (he will, and still does); and it's not because he regrets his choices (he doesn't); and it's not because he's given up his life as Shinra's hired hand (he won't).

It's that atonement suddenly seems like the right thing to do.

"Why are you doing this?" Cloud asks one day, stopping on the early morning trek.

Rude doesn't answer. He simply continues to gather the load of debris into the wheelbarrow he's been given and just shrugs.

"You don't talk a lot," Cloud finally says, and then stops and actually turns to address him.

Rude just shrugs again and throws a collection of shattered glass and broken brick into the wheelbarrow.

"You don't wear a suit to do this kind of work," he muses in his strange way.

"No," Rude agrees. His mouth tastes like the stale coffee they gave out that morning, and the sound of stones and mortar crunching under his feet is deafening.

"No one here knows who you are," Cloud continues. Finally, Rude stands up and turns to look at him. "Why are you doing this?" Cloud asks again.

"Because I'm strong," Rude finally says, meeting Cloud's eyes without expression. "And they asked for volunteers."

"That's it?" Cloud says, and there's a small sneer on his face. "You came because they asked for volunteers? A Turk?"

"Yeah," Rude replies, and waits.

Cloud doesn't have his sword this morning. In fact, he's dressed in normal clothes - no armor, no boots. No passerby would know who they were unless they saw Cloud's face, or somehow remembered Rude killing someone they knew.

"I heard Rufus recovered," Cloud finally says.

"He did."

"Him and Reeve have been talking a lot."

"They have," Rude replies, crossing his arms.

"You're not from Midgar, are you?" Cloud asks suddenly, but now his voice is more curious than accusatory.

Rude doesn't answer, just turns back around to continue with what he was doing.

"Come with me," Cloud says after a moment, "I want to show you something."

Rude straightens up again and evaluates. Cloud's got his arms crossed, standing with his feet planted firmly on the ground in a balanced stance; his face is blank.

"Alright," Rude finally acquiesces. No one notices them leave.

The streets are filled with people that flow like a swift river, a myriad of faces living and breathing and going places. Cloud passes through them like a ghost, almost floating in between the currents and the shouts of street vendors pedaling their wares. Rude just follows the elusive form, and notices that Cloud's shoulders are actually rather narrow.

Rufus was right in his assertion: Cloud fights like the SOLDIER he once claimed to be. But if Rude had ever seen him as a cadet back in Shinra's days, he would have written him off as just another failed candidate hoping to somehow worm his way into _city living_.

They go up a quiet stairway of a new building. There are no people here, and Rude just follows.

There on the roof, they can see everything. There's Midgar in the distance, vines wrapping around broken buildings, untouched since Meteor, the destroyed Shinra tower. Rude can see something that might be the 70th floor where he used to live.

"You see that?" Cloud says, pointing.

"Yes," Rude replies.

"That's your fault," Cloud says, and now his voice is strangely raw. "That is your fault."

"Yes, I know," Rude repeats.

The light is coming stronger now, the cloak of early morning and sparsely populated streets fading away. This is the first time that Rude has ventured outside of the work sites in Edge when the raw edge of breaking sun rises into daytime.

"You helped us," Cloud finally says, turning. His face is tense, his hands fisted, and he just stares.

"I was ordered to," Rude replies simply.

Cloud doesn't have a response, and finally turns back around to face the distant view.

"You're not from Midgar, are you?" Cloud repeats his former question from before.

"No," Rude says now.

"Neither am I," Cloud finally responds, even though he knows Rude is very aware of that fact. "I watch you every morning," he adds, turning around to stare at Rude. "I watch you gather up the broken things, haul them away."

Rude nods.

"I always wondered," and now Cloud is very close to him, staring at his hands and his arms, "what it was like to rule the world through brute force."

"I wouldn't know," Rude replies. When Cloud reaches out his hand to touch Rude's forearm, Rude doesn't flinch.

"All of you are brutes," he says finally, and strengthens his grip on Rude's arm. "Nothing will ever change that."

Rude's arm tightens reflexively when he feels Cloud's grip.

"You're quiet," Cloud says, drawing close enough now that Rude can feel his breath, "because you're strong. You don't need to talk."

And then he tips his head back slightly to look Rude straight in the face, his expression haunted and empty.

"There's nothing to really say," Rude says quietly, meeting Cloud's eyes; he is not afraid of judgment.

Cloud releases his arm finally, and then fingers are running up Rude's chest, animal-like and hard, an uncompromising rake over grass, a shovel through hard dirt, digging, searching.

Rude feels naked suddenly, as Cloud unbuttons his shirt steadily, and those fingers go further underneath, like peeling away a crust of earth with the fabric, the splitting of something sacred through the thin fastening of buttons, of human modesty and social graces.

But Rude lets Cloud touch him, rake against him with callused fingers, and just watches.

Behind them, the skeletal cityscape is illuminated in the hot rising sun in all of its macabre glory, and Rude fixes his eyes again on where he used to live.

"Here," Cloud says, his fingers pressed against Rude's chest, "is where your power comes from. All of you. From killing, from fear."

Rude reaches out and curls his hand around the back of Cloud's neck, pushing against the base of his skull, tensing his fingers, letting the threat of violence become palpable. Cloud seems somehow fragile, even though he isn't. Maybe in the past, in his hometown, Cloud was the boy that was the quiet one, but for very different reasons.

"You've got a big chip on your shoulder," Rude finally says, and moves his hand away.

Cloud stiffens, but he doesn't lash out. He doesn't move his hand either, and instead, untucks Rude's shirt.

"You're running out of words," he says softly, resolutely, and runs his hands lower to Rude's waist and hips - stones in the landscape of skin, hard knots in an ever-shifting sea of terrifying muscle.

"You're attracted to me," Rude says, and this time, even he's quiet. He looks down and watches Cloud's fingers run over the ridges of his hips, the taut muscles of his stomach; this is violence, and this is fragile.

"I want to kill you," Cloud says corrects, his voice steady, but it's the muscles in his arms now that are tightening.

"That too," Rude admits.

"But you're helping," and then Cloud pushes Rude's shirt back away from his shoulders, grasps him by the upper arms. "_Why_are you helping?"

No answer, and then Cloud is shaking his head as he wraps his hands around Rude's waist, fingers splaying over the blunt lines of his body.

"Have you ever wanted anything?" Cloud finally asks. "Did you ever want anything in Midgar?"

"I got what I wanted," Rude says simply. Cloud's fingers are rough and forceful. "Now, I do what I have to."

For a moment, they don't look at each other, but Cloud doesn't move his hands.

"You come up here a lot?" Rude asks after a few minutes. Cloud just nods.

"You like killing people? he asks, moving away.

"I don't dislike it," Rude says honestly, shrugging. Then adds, "I like to build things."

Cloud's head jerks up sharply to stare at him. "Then why are you hauling things away?"

"I'm good at it," Rude replies simply.

They look at each other for a long time, and Rude remembers what Cloud looked like that first time they saw each other in the Shinra building's elevator, how he can see that same ruined elevator behind them in the distance. And Cloud remembers the terror of running from blue suits, of the crash of a sector, of Aeris bowing forward as yet another remnant of Shinra sliced through her.

"You're right," Cloud finally says, "about every thing."

He's moved forward again, and has his lips pressed dangerously close to Rude's collarbones. He tastes something sharp and poisonous, like want, and shame.

The sun is shining down now, and Midgar's metal remains are reflecting the light in strange places.

And as Cloud runs his fingers lower, shaking his head and breathing hard, his back to Midgar and his face against Rude's chest as he tastes strength, he says softly, "Try picking up a brick next time."


End file.
